In medieval Europe, the midsummer festival was a time of expression of faith and culture, and various symbolic acts and symbols appeared in a concentrated manner.
London antiquarian John Stowe described the city's midsummer night Xi before 1540: people lit bonfires in the streets, and everyone contributed firewood and labor.
Accompanied by a "steward", a "guard" and two "soldiers", the "king and queen" arrived to preside over the afternoon's entertainment, and of course they were not immune to ridicule. The entire gathering was attended by up to 100 people, and it appeared to include most of the village community. As a result, the Church issued a decree forbidding people to imitate the lives of kings and queens, and even more so forbidding clergy to participate in them.
In the middle of the 13th century, Walter de Candilup, Bishop of Worcester, and Robert Grossest, Bishop of Lincoln, respectively ordered clergy not to participate in the summer celebrations of their diocese, as well as the "games of kings and queens." Such bans have also appeared in Oxford, Winchester, York, Exeter and other places.
The outrage of the upper echelons of the church was actually due to the debauchery of the vulgar peasants during the celebration of the festival. Similarly, in the 15th century, a monk at Wentzcombe Seminary in Gloucestershire, explicitly opposed the useless, stupid and blasphemous games played in midsummer, as well as drinking and lighting bonfires.
Members of the city's guilds marched through the streets with torches or weapons, accompanied by Morris dances, giant displays and theatrical performances. The houses were also decorated with greenery, as in early Tudor London. The books of parish deacons in many London parishes in the early 16th century show that churches and secular buildings were dotted with green branches, flowers, and fennel.
Like fire, these plants also have a symbolic meaning of healing and protection against aggression. During Midsummer, organized processions and performances take place in many towns and cities, which coincide with the celebration of Corpus Christi, in which the collective image of the community is displayed and the collective memory is constructed.
A Midsummer Night Show in London appeared as early as 1378 and by the end of the 14th century had developed into a show that included open-air theatre, with its heyday in the first half of the 16th century and ending in 1544. There are similar midsummer parades in other cities, all slightly later than in London. The earliest in Exeter was in 1415 and Coventry in 1421, although the first explicit mention was in 1445.
Chester's show was the latest, said to have been around 1499. As a result, the midsummer celebration appears to be a product of the end of the 14th century, expanding in popularity in the 15th century. Similar performances were performed in cities such as Nottingham, Bristol, and Liverpool in the early 16th century. In Gloucester, Carlisle, Salisbury, although they began to appear in the municipal archives of the late Tudor period, they were almost certainly preceded by them.
Although there is no information about when these Xi appeared in towns such as York, Leicester, Norwich and Newcastle, the parade show is also the most special part of Midsummer Night. Midsummer performances require a significant investment of money. Archives of the City of London's midsummer performances from 1512 to 1544, which contain expenditures of the time, confirm that the city paid large sums of money to jugglers, dancers, musicians, etc.
In addition to this, London's officials and heavily armed soldiers march through the streets lit up all night by "glass lights". The participants of the parade include trumpeters, flag bearers, trumpeters, troubadours, Morris dancers, gunners, archers, spearmen, and many more. The route of their parade is Xi through the "main street of the city".
For the city, the parade is a display of wealth, power, status, and stability, and can not only gather the citizens of the city and the surrounding villagers for miles, but may also attract the attention of the royal family. In 1526, Henry VIII asked London to hold a celebration to welcome his visit, and asked the celebration to imitate the ritual of a midsummer night. Bonfires were lit in the streets, surrounded by children with garlands.
In addition, there are troubadour performances and parish officers dressed in their best costumes. But the good times didn't last long. Henry VIII noticed the frenzied celebrations that caused confusion and vice, so he cancelled the 1539 London Midsummer Show. In other cities, midsummer performances and parades present a scene that bears a broadly similar profile to London.
In Chester, the Midsummer Show began as a ceremonial gathering of a group of heavily armed men to symbolize the military might that defended the city. It is held at the same time as the Midsummer Bazaar, the troubadour, and the surrounding troubadours are allowed to come to the city on the day of Midsummer Festival and find their work in the performances.
The city's midsummer performances consist of a procession, led by city officials and guild leaders, through the city via a traditional route and then divided into smaller groups for feasting. In 1564, the traditional procession added imaginary characters to the boys, armed with weapons to fight the dragon.
However, the last appearance of this kind of performance was in 1575. After that, the "naked boys" were replaced by the "boy lords" who led the guild procession in fancy costumes and on horseback. At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries in Salisbury, craft guilds (such as tailors' guilds) took part in the midsummer celebrations and added Morris dances and giant figures to the performances.
Fifteenth-century regulations show that entry into the church of St. Thomas was the culmination of a festive procession. But after the Reformation, leaving the episcopal church became a sign of the end of the celebration on the day of the festival. Parades of armed men, torch-bearers and musicians also took place in Nottingham, Exeter, Bristol, Liverpool, Barnstape and Tottenness in the early 16th century.
From the end of the 16th century, they also appear in the archives of the cities of Gloucester, Plymouth, Carlisle, Salisbury, Kendall, etc. A number of city archives confirm that the troubadour's performance seems to be an integral part of the midsummer festivities.
From the above evidence, it can be seen that Midsummer was a time of celebration and relaxation in both the countryside and the city, although there were some changes in the way and content of the celebration after the Reformation.
